


Stories Under Starry Skies

by sunlian



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II
Genre: Act 2, Custom Hawke, F/F, Fluff, Mutual Pining, Pre-Relationship, Stargazing, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Warrior Hawke - Freeform, early act 2 feelings? in MY fanfiction? its more likely than you think
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-25
Updated: 2018-04-25
Packaged: 2019-04-27 23:19:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,454
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14436318
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunlian/pseuds/sunlian
Summary: The Wounded Coast is quite beautiful at night.





	Stories Under Starry Skies

**Author's Note:**

> bleh i made myself write again. wooooooo hooray!   
> this was not supposed to go over like. 500 words but i am incapable of shutting the fuck up.

The Wounded Coast is beautiful at night, and Merrill is glad she’s not too tired to enjoy it.

 

She is tired, very tired in fact. Her limbs ache from the uphill trek from Kirkwall, and further still from the countless fights she and Hawke’s group had run into. Truthfully, she lost count after the 17th slaver that fell to crackling magical lightning, but she’s certain that she killed more. Her arms sting with shallow cuts that linger with blood magic, even with with a poultice applied to each arm and then careful bandaged. 

Still, the night is quiet and cool, a welcome respite from the chaos and heat of the day. The campfire has dulled to a flickering flame, the embers creaking comfortingly. Behind her, Isabela and Fenris sleep in their tents. Or at least, she hopes they’re sleeping; today was exhausting, and tomorrow only promises to be even more so as they close in on the den of slavers after Fenris. 

But Merrill doesn’t want to focus on that, or today even. Right now, she wants to focus on the Wounded Coast. 

Only one moon is visible in the sky, a slim silver crescent, the other is darkened, the only evidence of its presence is the absence of stars where it would be. The stars in question are bright, scattered and dotted through the dark blue-black sky. She’s missed them. In Lowtown, smog blocks the skies, and in Hightown, there’s fewer, drowned out by the lights of the city. Here however, the sky is clear, clear in a way that nearly makes her homesick. If she were to only close her eyes, the creaking of the embers could easily be the creak of aravels, and in an instant, she could sitting around a larger fire, listen to Hahren Paivel’s deep voice recite the stories of the People, her people.

But she doesn’t close her eyes. Homesickness is something that’s been wracking her all too much recently. So she keeps them open, taking in the stars, and she listens to what she can hear right now, not what she can recall from a memory. 

They’ve travelled deep enough into the hills that the salt spray doesn’t hit them, but the sound of the sea still reaches their camp, distant but soothing. It seems quieter than it was during the day, calmer. Thin foam on the edges of the waves and amoungst the rocks shines a faint silver, reflecting the gentle light of the moon. 

The view is wonderful from up here. She can barely see the bodies on the lower beaches.

Behind her, sand crunches and her ears twitch back, involuntarily tensing up before the gait becomes familiar and Hawke’s mabari trots up beside her, flopping onto the sand, panting. 

“Did you go on a big walk?” Merrill coos quietly, scratching the wardogs’ massive head, earning a satisfied huff in return, “Did you run ahead of Hawke again?”

“Surprisingly, he didn’t.”

Merrill jumps at the new, sudden voice, a tiny little yelp escaping her lips.

“Oh! Oh… it’s just you, Hawke. Sometimes I forget how quiet you can be sometimes,” she says, easing into a gentle smile.

Yasuko Hawke returns her smile with a grin that flashes even in the dim light, chuckling. 

“Well, how quiet I can be outside of my armour. Light steps can’t exactly make plate armour any less clanky.”

It’s Merrill’s turn to laugh, giggling softy. The mental image of the six-foot-tall warrior trying to sneak around in full plate is certainly an amusing one. 

Her quiet laughter tapers off into a comfortable silence between the pair of them, although Yasuko’s eyes stay on her, and Merrill hopes that the night is dark enough that she doesn’t see the redness starting to dust her cheeks. Her gaze is gentle and almost… well, she wants to say reverent, but that couldn’t possibly be it. She turns her gaze back up to the stars, tilting her head back. 

After a little while, she feels Hawke’s gaze shift off her, and out of the corner of her eyes, she can see her lie back, folding her hands atop her stomach. 

The pair of them, plus a gently snoring dog, return to their silence, taking in the glittering sky above them. Merrill tries to pick out constellations; she knows them all, all the Dalish ones, but her mind can’t seem to focus on any of them, instead choosing to simply take in the night around her, the company beside her. It’s… nice. Yes, she decides. This is nice.

“Are you having trouble sleeping?” Yasuko asks, and Merrill blinks down at her, confused for a moment. She shifts, rolling on her side, propping her head up on her arm, “I mean, your watch ended a while ago, after you set up the alarm glyphs, right?”

“O-oh, yes, I suppose…” she trails off, not sure how to finish. She is having trouble sleeping. She misses home. She misses her clan, but there’s nothing Yasuko can do fix that, and it’s not her job to fix it. She chose to come to Kirkwall, she chose to fix the mirror. Hawke doesn’t need to hear about her homesickness, not when she’s been nothing but supportive through her first three years here. It would seem ungrateful, wouldn’t it? It would be-

“You weren’t waiting for me, were you?” She says, that familiar smirk on her lips, and Merrill blinks again, in surprise this time. She really wishes she was better with words sometimes. She wishes she was able to tell Hawke even half of what she’s feeling. Maybe things would change, or, more likely, they’d stay the same, tinged with regret and stinging with rejection. 

As it stands, she manages to find some words at least.

“Well, I wasn’t… no, but I’m glad I did. Be awake when you got back, I mean,” she manages to get out, stumbling over herself near the end. She pauses, taking a deep breath, clinging to the impossibly fond look in Hawke’s eyes as she continues, “I was stargazing, actually. There’s a lot of stories in the stars.”

“I never really learnt any of the constellations,” Hawke says, voiced tinged with a far-off regret, “Mother doesn’t know them, and Father was always too busy teaching Bethany to teach me them. Like he promised…” 

“I could show you some. I mean, they’re Dalish, but the stars are the stars, right?” Merrill almost blurts out, unable to stand the look that was creeping its way onto Yasuko’s face. And… and the idea of not knowing the stars is also kind of sad as well.

Merrill doesn’t really wait for an answer. Rather, she lies down next to Yasuko, scooting close to her, and closer again when she offers an arm for her to lay her head on. At least, she hopes it’s offered. It’s solid, muscular, and yet still comfortable, and warm. Hawke is always so very warm. 

She can’t keep her eyes off of her, taking in the dark eyes, darker under the dim light, pupils widened until only a sliver of that dark green remains. She feels almost transfixed- that gentle, reverent look becoming clear on Yasuko’s face again. If she could just… close the gap between them-

“That group there, that’s the Keeper and his Courser.” She pauses, looking back at Hawke, who’s looking back at the stars, the same comforting softness on her face again. Merrill wouldn’t, couldn’t kiss her, so she takes comfort in this, the wonder in her expression, instead

“That’s the story you told Peepo, right?”

“Y-yes, that's the one I told your mabari.”

“Could you tell me that story again? I like it too.”

Shyness creeps into Yasuko’s voice, in a way she’s never really heard, and Merrill- well, she can’t help but smile at her, in that lovestruck way she’s certain Hawke’s sick of by now.

“Of course I can, Yasuko.”

———

The hours after that pass in silence. Isabela wales to find Merrill curled into Yasuko’s side, who, in turn, had an arm thrown across her small form. Curled into each other, safe and sleeping peacefully. 

Isabela rolls her eyes, and tuts in fondness. 

“Lovestruck fool,” she says as she drags a blanket across the pairs’ sleeping forms, regarding the sleeping Hawke with a roll of her eyes she wished she was awake to see. Before she turns takes begin her watch, she throws a fond gaze at Merrill, cuddled and curled into the human warrior’s side. Something in her heart twangs and twitches.

“She loves you, Kitten. I hope you’re able to see that, one day.”

As if one cue, the arm around Merrill’s middle curls ever so slightly, pulling her closer to Yasuko’s side. 

  
  



End file.
